| Humility doesn't mean thinking less of yourself but less time thinking about yourself |
Hi Shi Ren,
Welcome to your personalized Grit Lab Report!
We will go week by week, reviewing everything you have told us through Poll Everywhere.
We hope this will help you reflect on what you have learned and experienced during Grit Lab.
Important note!
Sometimes, you may not have been able to respond to all polls.
If the data for one of the polls is missing, the automatic report will display NA, or ““.
Okay, let’s get started!
The first half of Grit Lab delves deep intp the passion facet of Grit.
We like to call it Choose Easy, because we think gritty people pursue what they enjoy.
Putting it graphically, gritty people tend to pursue the intersection of these four circles.
The first time we met, you told us where you were on the grit rubric.
Regarding passion you picked .
Regarding perseverance you picked .
As you know, grit grows, so don’t worry if you are not yet where you’d like to be in your grit journey.
Hopefully, this class will help you become grittier each day.
In week 2, we looked at your interests.
Interest is an emotion, and it is the opposite of boredom.
Your interests are the activities or subjects that spontaneously grab your attention.
Trying things out and seeing how you feel is the best way to refine your interests.
In week 3, we studied values, your beliefs about what is important.
You said your top three values were achievement, stimulation, and self-direction.
You wrote a “This I Believe” essay, and here’s where you located it on Schwartz’s value taxonomy.
When we talked about strengths in week 4, you said your personality strength was emotional stability.
You said your top three talents were analytic, kinesthetic, and social.
We then talked about goal hierarchies.
You said you were not sure yet about your top-level goal.
We discussed self-concordance, or how much a goal aligns to your deeply held values and beliefs.
A goal you said you will be pursuing for the next six months is to get a job .
Here is how self-concordant that goal was:
Don’t worry if your self-concordance for that particular goal is low.
It might mean that you need to reframe that goal in a way that makes it more relevant to your deep self, or change it!
Remember that self-concordance is goal specific, so other goals might be more self-concordant.
We then transitioned to the second part of Grit Lab:
Work Smart
In week 6, we looked at goal setting and planning.
You WOOPed!
For your Wish, what you wanted to accomplish, you said Run a full marathon .
For your Outcome, what would happen if your wish came true, you said On track for the race .
For you Obstacle, what it is within you that stands in your way, you said Going out night before .
For your Plan, you created this when-then plan to achieve your goal: When I wake up on Friday at 6am, run .
Whether you changed your WOOP or stuck to that one, here’s where it landed between being a total fail, and going exactly according to plan.
And here’s how much you learned
These goals are hard, and despite our best efforts, our plans can fail.
The important thing is that you learn something along the way!
In week 7, we talked about deliberate practice.
You shared you’ve done daily practice in Sports .
We learned that deliberate practice requires a challenging, hyperspecific goal, maximum concentration, instant feedback, and is often done alone.
In week 8, we discussed feedback.
Even though feedback can be hard to take, it is often the key to improve. So if you want to improve, seek it actively!
You said you felt Embarrassed when receiving critical feedback, and Embarrassed when receiving positive feedback.
We then turned to learning about stress.
In week 9, you reported feeling a moderate amount of stress in your life right now, the primary source of it being uncertainty .
We also talked about adversity and failure.
Although related, adversity and failure are different:
Adversity happens to us, whereas failure is something for which we are generally more responsible.
However, how we interpret stress and failure matters…
Interestingly, research has found that people who believe that stress can facilitate learning and growth experience enhanced performance, well-being, and health.
And failure—not achieving a particular goal—can be interpreted as “I’m learning!” and lead you to look for the lesson in that experience.
We closed the Work Smart section of the class by talking about habits.
Throughout the semester, you practice habit building using your Build-A-Habit Guide book.
You describe the habit you chose as Something else .
Whether you were successful in habit building or not, this is how much you learned.
Finally, what good is grit if we do not dream for others?
So, we transitioned to Paying it Forward.
In week 10, we looked at mentors: role models that take an active role in your growth.
Hopefully, your mentor was authoritative, being both supportive and demanding.
Here’s how you described them:
You also wrote a gratitude letter to Teacher or professor .
In one word, you said it made you feel Good .
One way of paying it forward is having a prosocial, beyond-the-self purpose. Here’s how you responded to items assessing that.
… and so quickly we arrived at the end of the semester.
Here’s how your mood varied over these weeks.
Do you notice any patterns? Is there anything that correlates with your mood?
Here you can scroll through all the quotes you wrote to summarize each class.
| Humility doesn't mean thinking less of yourself but less time thinking about yourself |
In the final class, we looked back to everything we’ve learned together and to how our passion and perseverance evolved during this class.
Here are the comments from your Grit Lab Teammates:
| Sophia Feldman |
|---|
| I'm really thankful to have gotten to know Shi this semester. He has this great way of adding positivity and humor to our group, making our team dynamic memorable. What's amazing is how down-to-earth he is despite his impressive academic and athletic pursuits. Our conversations have been genuinely enjoyable, thanks to the wide range of interests that make him such an interesting person to connect with. Getting to know Shi has added a lot to my experience in Grit Lab this semester, and I'm grateful for the resilience and kindness he's shared. Shi's Discovery project was beyond impressive. Taking on the world's toughest mudder showed his grit and determination, and it left me in awe. Seeing how he tackled challenges with a positive mindset was eye-opening. Shi became someone I look up to, and the lessons from his journey were both motivating and uplifting. On top of that, his dedication to others, like volunteering at the Philly Marathon, highlighted his caring side, making me appreciate him more. |
| Amina Marwan |
| I was continually amazed by Shi Ng's passion for physical challenges and running. His determination and zest for pushing his limits are not only admirable but also motivating for those around him. It was really interesting to hear about Shi Ng's experience after his marathon (it was one of the craziest things I have ever heard) and truly makes me admire him as a person. His dedication is a testament to his adventurous spirit which also comes out during our discussions and when hearing about your experiences with class activities and tasks. |
| Jacob Scott |
| It was a pleasure getting to meet and develop a friendship with Shi Ren. He always was smiling (it was impressive how he managed to stay so positive all the time) and always had some funny story to tell us about his adventures since he was on exchange. He's in a few of my other classes too, including one I TA, so I get to see him in basically half of my schedule. It was great getting to meet a friend from Australia, and hoping we stay in contact. His discovery project was absurd. I was lucky enough to hear all about his journey training for torture-I mean an ultra marathon obstacle course! I was training for a marathon in my own right, so he was the perfect guy to have on my team, since I could ask him advice whenever I was struggling. It was like the expert was in my own group. Super proud of him for taking on his challenge in Texas, and hopefully he's happy with the results. |
We hope you have emerged from Grit Lab a little grittier than you started.
Do you want to see how your grit rubric changed?
Drumroll please…
Don’t worry if the rubric doesn’t yet reflect growth. It is only a coarse measure that cannot replace your own self-reflection.
In any case, grit is not built in a day…
…remember that progress is never smooth…
…so stay passionate and persevering in the lifelong quest of choosing easy, working smart, and paying it forward.
With grit and gratitude,
Angela and the Grit Lab team.